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Internet Explorer 7 gives standards the finger

If Internet Explorer 7 is Microsoft's attempt to gain back market share from Firefox, the developers are doing a very poor job so far.

Testers of the first beta that was released last week report a slew of problems with applications. And proving that the old monopolistic Microsoft still hasn't completely faded away, the company won't fully support today's open web standards.

Applications that seemingly have nothing to do with the browser came to a screeching halt, including the Trillian unified instant messaging client and Microsoft Money.

It just shows you how deeply Internet Explorer is embedded into the Windows operating system that i

Far more serious however is Microsoft's decision to deviate from the CSS standard (cascading style sheets). The current version of the brower wasn't very friendly for the standard either, but Microsoft had promised to better its life. Not so in the first beta, notes Paul Thurrott.

Microsoft has every (legal) right design Internet Explorer as it pleases. But the company has a poor track record in following and adopting open standards.

As users we have a very clear way to tell Microsoft how we feel about its refusal to truly support open standards and lock us in to a proprietary technology: use software that does adhere to open standards instead. Perhaps Microsoft will start listening when Firefox reaches 30 per cent market share.

Or as Thurrott puts it: "Boycott IE".

Speak out. (photo taken at anti war protest in San Francisco on the first day of the US's search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq on 20 March 2003)